Stocking a 10 Gallon / Breeding question.

[Kahoot]

Hi everyone. I am new to these forums and am looking for some advice!

Currently, I have a 10 Gallon tank that just finished cycling and I am incredibly excited to stock it after a months worth of frustration!

The problem is... I don't know how to stock it.. Right.
Currently it houses one male betta I had saved from Petsmart ... He's a regular veil tail, instantly I knew I had to bring him home because of how toxic the cup was. After doing behavior tests with him, I ruled out his personality, which is very docile. Probably the most docile betta, I had... I've had many docile betta's but not this docile. He's my 3rd current betta I have, each have their own setups over 5 Gallons.

Today, I had bought two baby panda cories, their very tiny.. The size of a penny from Petsmart and their doing incredibly well so far in the tank. My betta couldn't care less about them, he doesn't follow them, doesn't pay them any attention. He just loves playing in his filter current, or swimming around the tank.

Now, my question is... Is can I stock him with regular albino cories? Just the regular Aeneus species you find in PetSmart, and LFS. I am wanting albino's bigger than inch... So their able to breed. But I don't know if the tank will crash if I add them. What I am planning on doing on doing is, every two weeks, is only adding 2 fish at a time, so my tank doesn't get overwhelmed.. I am also wanting them for breeding purposes. (So I don't have to go out and buy more, so I can stock my future cycled 40 gallon.)

Or will FOUR 1 inch (and slightly over an inch, that's IF I can find inch long, the pet stores near me only carry cory's that are just a few week old babies) Albino cory's be ok? In a 10 Gallon....And can I add two more baby panda cories? With the betta and 4 albino's if I get albino's? ... Making it a total of 4 albino's ... 4 panda's and 1 betta.

Also, can Emerald Corydora's (Aeneus) crossbreed with Albino cories? I see full-grown Emerald's at Petsmart which is incredibly rare to see, and I am dying to get some.


Also, I'd like to mention... I have a 29-40 Gallon tank I am setting up. Which will probably be a corydora only tank. But I am gonna have to wait a month for it to cycle, and for me to plant.. So the 10 Gallon will obviously not be there forever home!

Last thing to say is, there is a YouTuber who has multiple cories in a 10 Gallon, which are well over an inch, she does 20% water changes per week, and her cory's are non-stop active even without feeding and are incredibly healthy to where their non-stop breeding, and their all mixed. (All have their own schools.)

So, I was wondering will I be OK. If I were to add 4 ... 1 inch albino cories, and 2 baby panda's with the betta? In the 10

[Kahoot]

I also tried AqAdvisor and got.... This:


You have plenty of aquarium filtration capacity.

Your aquarium filtration capacity for above selected species is 187%.
Recommended water change schedule: 32% per week.
Your aquarium stocking level is 105%.

FILTER: 10-30i Tetra Whisper + Tetra Whisper 3i

[bekateen]

Hi Kahoot,

First, welcome to PlanetCatfish! I hope you find a lot of good information as you develop your tanks.

Now to your stocking question.

Corydoras panda

, even full grown, are not as "big" as many other cory species. The fish sold as emeralds at the store may be ordinary

Corydoras aeneus

, but the name "emerald" catfish (sometimes emerald cory) is properly used with

Brochis splendens

, which grows much bigger than aeneus or panda. I'd advise you stay away from Brochis until you have your 40gal ready. Albino aeneus and regular ("bronze" cory) aeneus are the same species and do well together (but if an albino and regular mate, most of your babies will be regular). The aeneus are smaller than Brochis but larger than pandas.

If you want to keep and breed corys, you'll find they are much better off in larger groups of their own kind. So rather than getting 4 pandas and 4 aeneus, I'd advise you to get 8 pandas. They would look great schooling together, their smaller size will better fit the 10 gal tank, you'll have much better odds of getting a good mix of males and females.

Don't worry about their small size at the time of purchase. If you keep their water clean and feed them good foods (especially if you intermix your regular flake or pellet foods with weekly meals of live or frozen black worms, tubifex worms or brine shrimp), they will grow to breeding size in about 6-8 months.

The only thing you mentioned that bothers me is that I tend to think of bettas as liking still water, but corys, who live at the bottom of the tank, do better with more circulation.

If you have more questions, please ask.

Cheers, Eric

[Kahoot]

Thank you bekateen! That helps a lot.

I know you said to go with all panda's (I most likely will.) But, if I had 4 albino's (1 inch) and 4 baby pandas. Would I still be ok? (10 G.)

I'll stay away from the Emerald's until I got the 40 gallon established, they were really big at PetSmart, they never usually got that size.. It was such an impulse but I stayed away.

I will follow your advice with the panda's but still curious if I'd still be ok with 4 albino's and 4 panda's

[bekateen]

Hi Kahoot,

Well, yes you could get 4 pandas and 4 albinos, although in the long run albinos get pretty big and I've always felt that big aeneus look too big to fit in a 10 gal tank comfortably, for showing the same eager behavior that I like to see.

The other issue is sexing and potential cross-breeding: If you get only 4 of each species, you do have a risk of getting all of one sex for one species (or both); obviously you won't then get any breeding of that species. Also, if you have only one sex of one species, then when the other species starts spawning, you run the risk that these lonely other-species corys jump into the breeding mix, and you might get hybridized babies, which is not desirable.

Finally, going back to the idea that corys are naturally a schooling/shoaling fish, they really are more "happy" (assuming we humans can tell when fish are happy) in bigger groups. Personally, whenever I buy corys, I buy at least 6 of a kind at once, sometimes up to 11-12 of one species. They look great together, frolicking in water currents and digging in sand together for worms.

If you really want two species of corys in one tank, I'd advise you get a bigger group of pandas now, then when you get the 40 gal tank setup, buy your albinos or emeralds and put the pandas together with them. That will free up your 10 gal tank for a new cory, like a big school of

Corydoras hastatus

,

Corydoras habrosus

, or

Corydoras pygmaeus

... Or any of a number of other beautiful corys...

Corydoras venezuelanus

would be great!

Cheers, Eric